Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Meanings of Christmas

Btw, I'll be preaching during the 11 a.m. worship of Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church this coming Sunday, Dec. 29, here in Atlanta.“It’s
not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

Queen
Latifah’s Last Holiday has joined my
short list of “must see” holiday movies each year, joining the ranks of It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bishop’s Wife, and at least one of
the many versions of A Christmas Carol.
It’s the story of a working class dreamer told she has three weeks to live. She
splurges on a trip to an exclusive European hotel whose restaurant features a
world-class chef. A chef wannabe, she endears herself to him by wanting to
taste as many of his gourmet offerings as possible. At one point he tells her
that shiitake mushrooms get all the press, but a radish can be prepared as a
mouth-watering dish, explaining,

“It’s
not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

Today
we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but without his subsequent life, we would
never have known him.

I
have fond memories of Yale Divinity School’s celebration of Christmas each year
in the mid 1970's. The silver and china came out in the dining hall, prime rib
was the main course, we dressed up, the choir gave a concert in our white New
England chapel, and in front of the decorated fireplace in the wainscoted
Common Room, the charming old Luther scholar Roland Bainton would make a
delightful presentation of how Martin Luther would’ve told the story of Jesus’
nativity. We concluded the evening by everyone singing the Hallelujah Chorus
from Handel’s Messiah.

One
Advent in morning chapel, an African American student dropped a verbal bomb
into this cozy observance of Christmas by beginning his homily, rather harshly,
“There would be no Christmas without the crucifixion,” a refrain he repeated
several times during his sermon. It felt like an unnecessary attack on a warm
and fuzzy season.

But
he was right.

Though
I can’t believe the early Christian concept that Jesus was crucified to obtain
God’s forgiveness, my unbelief does not diminish but rather enhances Jesus’
sacrifice, in my view. Jesus was willing to live and die what he believed and
what he taught regardless of consequences. That to me is a greater sacrifice
than his death being a means to an end, even if that end is the salvation of
the world.

What
we have in that early Christian belief, though, is a spiritual understanding of
God’s child as vulnerable, born poor, reared in a subjugated country’s
backwaters, risking even death to remind us of God’s gracious love and to urge
us to love just as graciously. As God’s
children too, we might prove as willing. After all, the story’s ending is not
the crucifixion, but all who follow Jesus for generations to come.

Subscribe in a reader

Subscribe for free

ABOUT CHRIS...

Chris Glaser has a ministry of writing and speaking. Since graduation from Yale Divinity School in 1977, Chris has served in a variety of parish, campus, editorial, and interim posts. He has spoken to hundreds of congregations, campuses, and communities throughout the U.S. and Canada, and published a dozen best-selling books on spirituality, sexuality, vocation, contemplation, scripture, sacrament, theology, marriage, and death.